We are at a pivotal time in history, socially and globally, where the world is changing at unprecedented speed. The pandemic has coincided and accelerated great shifts in how we live and work thanks to features such as 5G connectivity, cloud storage and portable devices. This has challenged our collective perspective on what work is and where it can be done.
“I've spent a lot of that time working with organisations trying to help them transition to new ways of working. Before the pandemic, that was a project management process, a planned thing that they piloted, evaluated and then implemented. All that changed two and a half years ago and it became a case of ‘let's do it and then pick up the pieces and figure it out afterwards’. And now coming out of that, we're moving into a phase where people are talking and starting to reflect and ask ‘what did we learn from that? What do we want as an organisation? What do we want as individuals?’”
People are trying to figure out what it is they want in terms of how they live and how they work, and for a lot of people, that is a more location independent life, on their own terms, whether that's freelancing or simply renegotiating their expectations.
“And employers who are saying ‘everybody back to the office’ are going to lose out in the long run because the more self aware, creative and entrepreneurial people will vote with their feet, quite literally.”
The future of work is about respecting people’s individuality and accommodating it by offering them that choice in how, when and where they work. This will be the differentiating factor between the companies that rise to the top and the ones that sink.
Biography:
Maya Middlemiss is a freelance author, writer and consultant. She hosts The Future is Freelance. She is originally from London but currently lives and works in Spain as an Estonian e-resident. Her interest lies in the future of work from the point of view of location independence, solopreneurship and new models and ways of working, of which accommodating that work is an important part.
Biography:
Maya Middlemiss is a freelance author, writer and consultant. She hosts The Future is Freelance. She is originally from London but currently lives and works in Spain as an Estonian e-resident. Her interest lies in the future of work from the point of view of location independence, solopreneurship and new models and ways of working, of which accommodating that work is an important part.